“Before becoming a judge, Amy Coney Barrett had a long record of criticizing stare decisis, the fundamental judicial principle of faithfully applying settled law to current cases. Her disdain for stare decisis indicates that she would be willing to overturn critical precedents. This would threaten access to health care, including reproductive care, for millions of people, erode LGBTQ rights, protections for immigrants, workers, consumers, and the environment, and deny fair justice to those in the criminal justice system.”
– “Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett,” Alliance for Justice Report, 2020
In nominating Amy Coney Barrett to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, President Trump has exercised a constitutional prerogative. No Supreme Court justice in history has ever been confirmed later than July of an election year.
Ramming through a Supreme Court nomination would reward the hypocrisy of Senate Republicans who wouldn’t even consider President Obama’s nomination of Merrick B. Garland in 2016, also an election year, supposedly because it would deprive voters of a say in the choice of a new justice. A rushed confirmation also would exacerbate the poisonous partisanship that has infected the Senate confirmation process and undermine the credibility of the court.
Barrett would cement a conservative majority on the courts for decades to come on issues ranging from affirmative action to gun control to immigration.
“Barrett’s inclusion on Trump’s short-list demonstrates that she passes his key litmus tests with flying colors. She has been identified as someone who, if given the opportunity will dismantle the Affordable Care Act and gut Roe v. Wade. On the bench, she has continued to show hostility to reproductive rights, access to justice, due process, and the rights of Americans to be free from discrimination in the workplace.”
– Alliance For Justice, 2020
Issues, however, are almost certainly not what is motivating big donors to funnel millions of dollars into groups like the Judicial Crisis Network, the oil magnate Charles Koch’s network, and the US Chamber of Commerce in support of Barrett’s nomination. Those groups’ ads and lobbying campaigns may try to focus the public debate on religion and court precedent, but such enormous sums of cash flood into judicial campaigns with one underlying goal: enriching the corporations and plutocrats that are making the donations.
David Sirota, Guardian columnist and award-winning investigative journalist, says ...
“Amy Coney Barrett’s US supreme court nomination must be understood as the culmination of cynical tactics that Republicans have perfected over the last two decades. The strategy is straightforward: they nominate plutocrat-compliant judges knowing that the corporate-owned media and political system will make sure confirmation battles focus on partisan wrangling and high-profile social issues – but not also on the economic issues that justices often decide.”
(David Sirota. “The US supreme court may soon become plutocracy's greatest defender. The Guardian. October 02, 2020.)
The public should know that perhaps the biggest problem with putting Barrett on the Court is that Barrett’s decisions were coded as pro-big business when a business entity was the clear victor or when a large corporate entity was successful against a much smaller business entity.
The major rub? Some fear Trump nominated anti-worker Barrett to weaponize the nation’s most important court against labor.
– Tom Conway, international president of the United Steelworkers Union
Sirota explains that Republican politicians rely on conflagrations over political process and social issues to mobilize their religious base in service of Republican donors’ real objective – smuggling corporate cronies on to the highest court in the land. And if Barrett is confirmed, those Republican donors will not just get another business-friendly judge – in advance of the 2020 election, they will also get a third justice who worked directly on the legal team that convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to hand Republicans the presidency in 2000.
Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) issued a report Monday highlighting what they called Barrett’s “track record of favoring big corporations over the rights of the American people.”
Newsweek reported analysis released last week by watchdog group Accountable.US found that Barrett ruled in favor of corporations in 76 percent of 55 cases she heard during her time on 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
(Press Release. Accountable.US, “Report: Coney Barrett Sided with Corporations Over People 76% of the Time.” September 29, 2020)
The group found that Barrett sided with corporate interests in 42 of the cases and people in 11 cases, while two rulings were said to be neutral.
A Constitutional Accountability Center Issue Brief warned …
“Based on this record, there is significant reason to worry that Judge Barrett, if she is confirmed, will continue the Roberts Court’s trend toward improperly favoring the interests of big businesses over all Americans. This is particularly concerning given that she has been nominated to take the seat of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who knew all too well the ways that corporations could use their power to discriminate against employees, limit access to justice, and avoid accountability for harm to consumers and workers.”
(ISSUE BRIEF: “Will Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett Be A Reliable Vote for Big Business?” Constitutional Accountability Center. 2020)
Just weeks before Trump reportedly selected her to fill the new Supreme Court vacancy, Judge Amy Coney Barrett delivered a ruling that could help corporations evade long-standing laws requiring them to provide overtime pay to their workers.
Barrett ruled against workers who sued a transportation company that refused to pay them for extra hours they logged. Even though the Wisconsin company exclusively assigned the workers to yard duty, in which they used tractors to pull trailers short distances between warehouses, Barrett ruled they qualified as truckers engaged in interstate commerce. And that left them ineligible for overtime no matter how many hours their bosses required them to work.
(Tim Conway. “How Donald Trump intends to weaponize the Supreme Court against ordinary Americans.” Independent Media Institute. October 09, 2020.)
This ruling comes as technology companies have been trying to use mandatory arbitration clauses to avoid better remunerating so-called gig workers. Those provisions often force worker disputes to be decided by private arbitrators handpicked by the companies, rather than in an impartial court of law.
According to a recent report from the Alliance for Justice …
“That ruling was one of a number of cases in which Barrett helped corporate interests prevail over workers. Her highest-profile business-focused actions on the federal bench have limited the enforcement of age-discrimination laws, restricted federal agencies’ power to punish companies that mislead consumers, and reduced consumers’ rights against predatory debt collectors.”
(“Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.” Alliance for Justice Report. 2020)
In one case, the report says that Barrett "ruled that protections against age discrimination for employees do not also extend to job applicants.”
Another case saw Barrett rule in favor of a major pharmaceutical company against a woman who was forced to undergo a hysterectomy after having a faulty intrauterine birth control device implanted.
The Alliance for Justice Report also noted that Barrett had refused to hear a case concerning racial segregation, on that another judge had said legalized "the separate but equal doctrine." The result: Barrett weakened Title VII of the Civil Rights Act – siding against a Black worker whose employer established a “separate-but-equal” policy of segregating their employees by race.
(“Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.” Alliance for Justice Report. 2020)
(Aila Slisco. “Judge Amy Coney Barrett Sided With Corporations Over People 76% of the Time on Appeals Court, Report Finds.” Newsweek. September 30, 2020.)
Of course, Trump has his hands in the business interests of nominating Barrett. Like other Trump nominees, she has shown an inclination to rule in favor of the rights of the wealthy and powerful over the rights of all.
Donald Trump nominated Barrett to weaponize the nation's most important court against ordinary, working Americans. Her confirmation would give the court's right-wingers a 6-3 majority. And because she refuses to adhere to precedent, Barrett could provide a crucial vote on cases potentially overturning organizing rights, rolling back labor protections, and dealing other setbacks to workers.
Jason Haynes, a member of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 6787 who works at ArcelorMittal’s Burns Harbor, Indiana, site explains …
“Having her (Barrett) on there is definitely not going to do any favors for labor, that’s for sure. Labor rights are imperative to giving us a seat at the table. If we’re not sitting at the table, we’re on the menu. Our rights are the only leverage we have.”
(Tim Conway. “How Donald Trump intends to weaponize the Supreme Court against ordinary Americans.” Independent Media Institute. October 09, 2020.)
Haynes worries that the voices of ordinary Americans will be drowned out as the court adopts an increasingly corporate-friendly agenda. Because of Barrett's relative youth, he said, she could wreak damage for generations.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal used his opening statement in today's hearing to urge Judge Amy Coney Barrett to sit out any Supreme Court election cases involving President Trump. Blumenthal said …
“Your participation – let me be very blunt – in any case involving Donald Trump’s election would immediately do explosive, enduring harm to the court’s legitimacy and to your own credibility. You must recuse yourself.”
Blumenthal told Barrett he is "really deeply concerned" that the Supreme Court is "losing the trust and respect of the American people." He said …
"The American people follow the Supreme Court's commands, even when they disagree, because they respect its authority. And now, President Trump and the Republican senators are eroding, indeed destroying, that legitimacy. They've stripped the American people of their say in this process, simply to confirm a justice who will strike down in court, legislate from the bench, what they can't repeal in congress.”
(Bradley Cortright. “Sen. Blumenthal Warns of ‘Explosive Enduring Harm’ To the Supreme Court’s Legitimacy.” ijr.org. October 12, 2020.)
“I believe this lady is going to try to destroy our unions. Barrett will fit right in with the right-wing Supreme Court majority that’s already delivered many partisan decisions benefiting corporations at the expense of workers.
– Dottie Kotansky, a retired member of USW Local 8567 in Hazleton, Pennsylvania
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